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Ryan Dadoun

In The Crease

West Free Agent Ratings

Well it really was the Wild West this past week as Minnesota went to town signing the two biggest free agents available in Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. What did the other teams in the West do the past few days? Glad you asked.

It made sense for the Ducks to go after defensemen after they traded Lubomir Visnovsky. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a particularly good market to do it in and they ended up taking a significant risk without actually getting that much better.

Their three-year, $10.5 million deal with defensive defenseman Bryan Allen is fine, but given Sheldon Souray’s age, extensive injury history, and declining offensive input, it’s surprising they thought giving him a three-year, $11 million contract was a good idea. Souray is 35 years old – he’ll turn 36 on July 13th – so they’re stuck with that cap hit even if they attempt to send him to the minors.

I’m not a big fan of Calgary’s aversion to rebuilding and I think their continued insisted to patchup their team through free agent signings and trades will haunt them in the longrun. However, I have to look at what they’ve done this summer independently of what direction I think this franchise should be taking, and, honestly, I don’t hate these signings.

Hudler’s four-year, $16 million deal and Wideman’s five-year, $26.25 million contract aren’t that excessive in this inflated market and both players should be able to perform through the life of their respective deals. I don’t think it’s enough to make Calgary a Stanley Cup contender, but they did improve their team without sacrificing a whole lot in the process.

Chicago has some unrestricted free agents, including Andrew Brunette, Sean O’Donnell, Sami Lepisto, and Brendan Morrison, but at the time of writing, none of them have found new homes so they’re not technically losses yet.

After back-to-back first-round exits, you could make a strong argument that the Chicago Blackhawks needed to make a move this summer. That might still happen, but if it does, it will have to be through the trade market because they were unable to lure any significant free agents.

The Avalanche’s biggest objective this summer was re-signing the army of restricted free agents they had available. They’ve largely that accomplished and scooped up a few unrestricted free agents for good measure.

Their decision to sign Greg Zanon to a two-year, $4.5 million contract isn’t too bad on its own, but is eyebrow-raising when you factor in that they also have defensemen Erik Johnson, Jan Hejda, Ryan Wilson, Shane O’Brien, Ryan O’Bryne, and Matt Hunwick all inked to one-way contracts. That’s seven defensemen who will each cost the Avalanche between $1.6 million and $3.75 million in cap space in 2012-13. On top of that, they have a few defensive prospects who might be ready to play in the NHL, including Tyson Barrie and Stefan Elliott. So the Avalanche have created quite a logjam for themselves to sort out over the summer and, if necessary, training camp.

I like the signing of P.A. Parenteau a lot more and would argue that his four-year, $16 million deal is even something of a bargain in this market. He’s got first-line potential and is coming off a 67-point season. The knock on him is that he doesn’t have a long track record of success for a 29-year-old, but that ignores his solid 2010-11 campaign and his superb seasons in the AHL before he was finally given a fair shot in the NHL. Parting ways with John Tavares might hurt him a little, but he’ll probably end up playing alongside the likes of Paul Stastny, Matt Duchene, and Gabriel Landeskog in Colorado.

The success or failure of the Blue Jackets will ultimately be linked to Rick Nash. If they are able to trade him and realize an asset haul, the franchise could be revitalized.

Until that happens, there’s really not much to say. Nick Foligno should serve as a top-six forward with the Columbus Blue Jackets, but that says as much about their lack of depth as it does his talents. They gave up a capable defensive defenseman to get him in Marc Methot. All in all, it was a relatively fair trade, but not one that will have a large impact on either franchise.

Given their ages, Jaromir Jagr and Ray Whitney should only be regarded as short-term fixes and their one and two-year contracts reflect that. However, as stopgap measures go, these aren’t bad. The Stars do have a relatively young core and thanks to Dallas’ off-season moves, they’re probably going to be exposed to some playoff playing time.

It’s hard to get too excited by the Dallas Stars’ moves given that Jagr and Whitney will likely be ex-Stars before this team becomes serious Stanley Cup contenders, but they’re decent signings.

The Stars’ decision to acquire Derek Roy at the expense of Steve Ott and Adam Pardy is likely to have more lasting consequences and it’s a solid move. They’re probably getting Roy at a discount due to his rough 2011-12 campaign, but he’s a great candidate to bounce back in a new city and surrounded by some pretty talented forwards.

Brad Stuart and Nicklas Lidstrom weren’t included in that list of major losses because both players parted ways with Detroit well before the Entry Draft, but the void they left defined their summer. Detroit is a far worse team than it was 2011-12 and they’ve done very little to fix that.

Management reportedly went after Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, but in the end, the best player they landed was Samuelsson, who is frankly a downgrade from Hudler.

Detroit might still be able to pull off a blockbuster trade that fixes everything, but right now they’re looking like the summer’s biggest losers.

Well it really was the Wild West this past week as Minnesota went to town signing the two biggest free agents available in Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. What did the other teams in the West do the past few days? Glad you asked.

It made sense for the Ducks to go after defensemen after they traded Lubomir Visnovsky. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a particularly good market to do it in and they ended up taking a significant risk without actually getting that much better.

Their three-year, $10.5 million deal with defensive defenseman Bryan Allen is fine, but given Sheldon Souray’s age, extensive injury history, and declining offensive input, it’s surprising they thought giving him a three-year, $11 million contract was a good idea. Souray is 35 years old – he’ll turn 36 on July 13th – so they’re stuck with that cap hit even if they attempt to send him to the minors.

I’m not a big fan of Calgary’s aversion to rebuilding and I think their continued insisted to patchup their team through free agent signings and trades will haunt them in the longrun. However, I have to look at what they’ve done this summer independently of what direction I think this franchise should be taking, and, honestly, I don’t hate these signings.

Hudler’s four-year, $16 million deal and Wideman’s five-year, $26.25 million contract aren’t that excessive in this inflated market and both players should be able to perform through the life of their respective deals. I don’t think it’s enough to make Calgary a Stanley Cup contender, but they did improve their team without sacrificing a whole lot in the process.

Chicago has some unrestricted free agents, including Andrew Brunette, Sean O’Donnell, Sami Lepisto, and Brendan Morrison, but at the time of writing, none of them have found new homes so they’re not technically losses yet.

After back-to-back first-round exits, you could make a strong argument that the Chicago Blackhawks needed to make a move this summer. That might still happen, but if it does, it will have to be through the trade market because they were unable to lure any significant free agents.

The Avalanche’s biggest objective this summer was re-signing the army of restricted free agents they had available. They’ve largely that accomplished and scooped up a few unrestricted free agents for good measure.

Their decision to sign Greg Zanon to a two-year, $4.5 million contract isn’t too bad on its own, but is eyebrow-raising when you factor in that they also have defensemen Erik Johnson, Jan Hejda, Ryan Wilson, Shane O’Brien, Ryan O’Bryne, and Matt Hunwick all inked to one-way contracts. That’s seven defensemen who will each cost the Avalanche between $1.6 million and $3.75 million in cap space in 2012-13. On top of that, they have a few defensive prospects who might be ready to play in the NHL, including Tyson Barrie and Stefan Elliott. So the Avalanche have created quite a logjam for themselves to sort out over the summer and, if necessary, training camp.

I like the signing of P.A. Parenteau a lot more and would argue that his four-year, $16 million deal is even something of a bargain in this market. He’s got first-line potential and is coming off a 67-point season. The knock on him is that he doesn’t have a long track record of success for a 29-year-old, but that ignores his solid 2010-11 campaign and his superb seasons in the AHL before he was finally given a fair shot in the NHL. Parting ways with John Tavares might hurt him a little, but he’ll probably end up playing alongside the likes of Paul Stastny, Matt Duchene, and Gabriel Landeskog in Colorado.

The success or failure of the Blue Jackets will ultimately be linked to Rick Nash. If they are able to trade him and realize an asset haul, the franchise could be revitalized.

Until that happens, there’s really not much to say. Nick Foligno should serve as a top-six forward with the Columbus Blue Jackets, but that says as much about their lack of depth as it does his talents. They gave up a capable defensive defenseman to get him in Marc Methot. All in all, it was a relatively fair trade, but not one that will have a large impact on either franchise.

Given their ages, Jaromir Jagr and Ray Whitney should only be regarded as short-term fixes and their one and two-year contracts reflect that. However, as stopgap measures go, these aren’t bad. The Stars do have a relatively young core and thanks to Dallas’ off-season moves, they’re probably going to be exposed to some playoff playing time.

It’s hard to get too excited by the Dallas Stars’ moves given that Jagr and Whitney will likely be ex-Stars before this team becomes serious Stanley Cup contenders, but they’re decent signings.

The Stars’ decision to acquire Derek Roy at the expense of Steve Ott and Adam Pardy is likely to have more lasting consequences and it’s a solid move. They’re probably getting Roy at a discount due to his rough 2011-12 campaign, but he’s a great candidate to bounce back in a new city and surrounded by some pretty talented forwards.

Brad Stuart and Nicklas Lidstrom weren’t included in that list of major losses because both players parted ways with Detroit well before the Entry Draft, but the void they left defined their summer. Detroit is a far worse team than it was 2011-12 and they’ve done very little to fix that.

Management reportedly went after Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, but in the end, the best player they landed was Samuelsson, who is frankly a downgrade from Hudler.

Detroit might still be able to pull off a blockbuster trade that fixes everything, but right now they’re looking like the summer’s biggest losers.

If you want to talk about pure value relative to their cap hit, the Oilers might have signed the best deal of the off-season when they inked defenseman Schultz to an entry-level contract. They already had a ton of talented young forwards and adding Schultz to the mix could go a long way towards eliminating one of their biggest remaining question marks. Of course, it’s hard to predict too much when you’re talking about a guy who never played in an NHL game, but given his level of talent and the fact that his contract makes him a low risk, it’s hard to paint this summer as anything other than a win for Edmonton.

The Los Angeles Kings are a young team that’s just won the Stanley Cup. Rather than try to mess with that, they focused on just keeping their core intact. They re-signed Dustin Penner to a one-year, $3.25 million contract and called it a day. The Kings also inked Jonathan Quick to a 10-year, $58 million extension that won’t kick in until the 2013-14 campaign.

The summer is still young, but it looks like they’ll have largely the same team in 2012-13, and it’s hard to blame them taking that route.

There were two big fish in the 2012 unrestricted free agent market and the Minnesota Wild managed to ink both of them to matching 13-year, $98 million contracts. The deals are significantly frontloaded, with just $4 million owed to each player over the last three years of their respective deals. Depending on what happens with the CBA negotiations over the summer, the Wild might be the last team to structure massive, long-term contracts like this.

They’re not quite Stanley Cup contenders yet, but they do have a great core to build around. In addition to Parise and Suter, Mikko Koivu is already signed through the 2017-18 campaign. More to the point, they are easily this summer’s most improved team and that counts for a lot.

The Nashville Predators decided to swing for the fences last season and they struck out. Their attempts to trade away pieces of their future didn’t lead to a lengthy playoff run or convince Suter to stay in Nashville. Instead, they lost Suter for nothing and now they have to decide if they want to trade Shea Weber or risk losing him as a free agent next season.

The news isn’t all bad for Predators fans. They do have some young, talented blueliners in Jonathan Blum, Ryan Ellis, and Roman Josi. Those three should help to fill the void created by the loss of Suter and the potential departure of Weber. Still, it’s hard to look at the Predators as anything other than losers this summer.

The Phoenix Coyotes might also end up losing their captain, Shane Doan.

Until they get an owner, it’s hard for Coyotes GM Don Maloney to compete with the big spenders during the free agent process or even retain his talented players. Still, he’s managed to make the most of an awkward situation over the years and getting Sullivan at the discount price of $1.85 million is the latest example of that.

Overall, this is shaping up to be a bad summer for the Coyotes – at least as far as their roster goes – but it’s hard to say just how bad it will be until Doan makes his decision.

The San Jose Sharks’ biggest addition came well before the unrestricted free agent period when they traded for the rights to Brad Stuart and subsequently signed him to a three-year, $10.6 million contract.

After an early exit in the 2011-12 playoffs, there were some that suspected the Sharks would attempt to make significant changes to their lineup. After all, the current core has been unable to win the Stanley Cup and Joe Thornton is slowly exiting his prime. However, it’s not surprising that they stayed relatively quiet during the free agent frenzy. They don’t have a lot of cap space and they already had close to a full roster of players signed to one-way contracts.

If the Sharks decide to shake things up, it will be done through the trade market, but that’s a story for another day…

The St. Louis Blues’ main goal was to lure a top-four defenseman to their squad and so far, they haven’t been able to do that via the free agent process. They might still trade for a defenseman, but it’s a position that every team covets and it will be hard to find a particularly desirable one on the trade market. Even if they do find a team willing to part with a top-four caliber defenseman, they’ll have to give up a forward in the process.

Jason Garrison got off to a really good start in 2011-12, but fizzled out a bit as the campaign went on. All the same, in the weak 2012 unrestricted free agent market, he had plenty of suitors and ultimately decided to play for his home province. Garrison inked a six-year, $27.6 million contract, which is about one-to-two years longer than I’d feel comfortable with, especially seeing as he got a no-trade clause. The $4.6 million annual cap hit isn’t great either – but to be fair, it is in line with the general market inflation.

This signing isn’t a homerun for the Vancouver Canucks and it’s one that has the potential to do more harm than good, but in the grand scheme of things, a $4.6 million cap hit certainly isn’t crippling, especially given the way the salary cap has been ballooning recently.

Overall, their big accomplishment was inking Cory Schneider to a three-year, $12 million deal. He’s ready to take over as the starter – which is good because they’re certainly paying him like one – but first they need to find a new home for Roberto Luongo. That’s a process that’s likely to heat up now that the free agent frenzy has died down.